


If you love her, let her go

by Emanemmy12



Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26099644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emanemmy12/pseuds/Emanemmy12
Summary: Just thoughts about what could have been going on in April's head in that last bench scene.
Relationships: Sterling Wesley/April Stevens
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	If you love her, let her go

It hurts so much more than you thought it would. But you know it has to be done. Being normal and being safe are the priorities. They always have been. Love had never been an option before. And with the consequences for who you love, it’s better to be safe. You’ve read the statistics. Better than before, but still not good and still highly likely that you’d wind up being one of those number of kicked out homeless teenagers.

You wish that she could understand. But it’s clear that she hasn’t spent the years so desperately trying to shove down what you both felt. It’s been a conscious thing for almost as long as you can remember. Moments flash in your mind. The sick burning shame that pulled inside you when you would listen to sermons preaching about sin and when you’d hear your parents talking about deviants has been your constant companion. That feeling that you get before gym class where everyone has to change and you fix your eyes to your locker, breath held as you change as fast as possible, hoping no one sees your eyes move and suddenly just know your secret. It sits heavily in your stomach, making you want to puke up the feeling if you could or tear it out of yourself. It makes you feel like you are covered in grime. You are more familiar with it then the way Sterling’s smile curled in a way that made you want to forget everything. In a way it feels safer than her arms around you. You’ve always known that you’d be alone, at least until after college. Your father’s expectations have always been clear and though you’d once thought they were because he wanted the best for you, but so many things are up in the air now. So it makes sense to stick to the mud, to the tar that held you down to the ground. The moments where she’s helped you fly will make things more tolerable.

You know you’ll have to rebuild yourself. Put yourself back to the path where no one would know and hold these few days as memories that you weren’t alone. But you know you’ll be standing alone again now. That thin glass of separation between you and everyone else is both a protective shield and a window that has always mocked you. How desperately you want to be just like them, to love and be loved, to be as carefree as the rest of your peers seem to be. But you are filled with this need to show them how better and successful you are. Perhaps it’s the only way that you can compensate for the failing that you cannot change. Each perceived win or loss becomes just that more elating or devastating. They are check marks to show your parents, so called friends, and society that you aren’t as bad and wrong as they say you are, even without knowing it. It makes everything so much more pressing. You thought she’d maybe understood that, understood you. And for a few lovely moments you’d even thought that the doubts and fears wouldn’t have mattered. That you could have shattered that glass and stood proudly next to her. But things change. It isn’t safe. It never has been and you’ve been lying to yourself. Her eyes make it easy to do that. All this has been is a brief fever dream, fueled by hope and the desperate acts of you as you drown. Sterling will be the last breaths of air that you will taste of freedom until you are an adult.

She’s looking at you, lack of comprehension written all over her face, and you can feel your heart trying to claw its way out of your chest. You can’t stop it, unable to stop from trying to explain. All it does it make her shut down. And that empty “Oh.” The last bit of hope falls from your lips. You want this, want her, and always have and you aren’t foolish enough to think that it will change. “Maybe someday?” Someday when your family isn’t spiraling into the ground, someday when your father is far away from you, someday when you aren’t so crippled by the fears that clamp down on your heart when you think about just holding hands in public, someday when you don’t flinch when your father speaks just slightly too loudly. You want her to wait, but you know she won’t. It wouldn’t really be fair to expect her to. That doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t feel like your world is shattering when she delivers her answer. You can feel the weaknesses coming up again. You want to take her hands in yours, make her promises that you know you’ll never be able to keep. You swallow them down. You remind yourself that it wouldn’t matter. Your father wouldn’t have allowed this, ever.

You didn’t think it was possible to hate yourself more than you already did. But you do. Because you leave her.

“Bye, Stirl.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, April gives me all the feelings and I want her to be happy. This wasn't proofread, but hopefully the second person doesn't get too messed up. Let me know if it does and I can fix it.


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